Arsenal in the Trunk
by lembas7
Summary: A collection of short ficbits that may or may not have larger stories lurking within. Chapter 15: White Picket Fence. By the time Claire turns fourteen, everything is different.
1. Rage Against The Dying

**Disclaimer:** Supernatural. I own DVDs and my imagination. No more, no less. I also worship at Kripke's altar.

**A/N:** Because everyone has to write a fic about AHBL, and about the Deal, and I'm no different. Hitting 'Faith', 'In My Time of Dying', and the tail end of AHBL2.

**Summary:** Do not go gentle into that good night.

* * *

RAGE AGAINST THE DYING

_"I'm not gonna let you die, period. We're goin'." _

The first time Dean brushed shoulders with a Reaper, he barely even felt it – overwhelmed instead by the heavy weight of his heart, the tingling numbness in fingers and feet, the darkness encroaching on his vision with every shortened breath. As far as dying went, it sucked. Every scrap of energy was devoted to the next beat of his heart, leaving him nothing for those times he managed to stay awake. He was drained and listless and it _hurt._

Dean could see the end coming, one long slow slide to oblivion, and it would almost be a relief to leave the pain behind. Not to leave Sam, but to just lay his burden – the hunting – down.

_"We were just starting to be brothers again."_

The second time, he can't remember. Not anything beyond a pit in his stomach that reopened whenever he thought about it, threatening to swallow him whole. Then Dad, and the less said about _all_ of it, the better.

Now, though.

_"How could you do that?"_

And it's not that Dean _wants_ to die. But he knows a little something about debts and tallies and how many times you get to call _do over._

And, well.

Third time's the charm.

_**Fin**_


	2. Fire And Blood

**Disclaimer: **Kripke owns Supernatural. And my soul.

**A/N:** Oh, yeah. Here we go. IMTOD.

**Summary: **Sam and John were more alike than anyone but the Yellow-Eyed Demon knew.

* * *

FIRE AND BLOOD

_"You know the truth, right? About Sammy? And the other children?" _

_"Yeah. I've known for awhile." _

Rituals.

They have power, in and of themselves, beyond the belief infused in them by those who perform them – be they human or demon or something else entirely.

He remembers the soft _patter_ of blood against the back of his hand. Can see it in full color and bright sound when he chooses to recall that night. And when he first learned what it meant, nausea bit sharply at the back of his throat and lingered there for days, whiskey be damned.

_Blood._

So powerful, so sacred, whether shared or spilled or given freely.

John found out, early on, that women's blood held more power than men's, and it made sense when he stopped and thought about it. There was a power in the cycle that gave life, and it too shed blood.

Of course, that disparity in power was negated by a willing offering, but such a sacrifice trumped everything else. The man on the cross proved it.

And the demon was unlikely to get a volunteer.

So it settled for using a woman's blood to complete its ritual, baptizing the babe in its mother's gore after feeding the child a piece of hell made flesh. Further compounded the dark rite by the choice of woman; love was a powerful thing, driving humans to great feats and great despair.

So of course Azazel tapped that as well.

And then the fire.

The wealth of symbolism, of ritual potency imbued in the fire meant that John really had no idea _why_ this ritual was consecrated - desecrated - in flame. Hellfire, rebirth, destruction, purification – any of those or a dozen more reasons would easily explain Mary's miserable death.

The essence of the ritual was a soul-deep tainting – one that John had interrupted, delayed, but had ultimately been unable to prevent.

_Jessica. Sam's girlfriend._

She hadn't died because Sam loved her. She'd died because she loved Sam. And John would take that secret beyond the grave into hell itself rather than let such knowledge hang heavy on his youngest.

But now, he closed his fist over the open cut on his hand, and masked his thoughts in order to parlay with his wife's murderer. To save his oldest. Just another skirmish in the battle, but he could see the end.

_"You care a hell of a lot more about this gun than you do about Dean."_

_"Don't be so sure. He killed some people very special to me. But still, you're right, he isn't much of a threat. And neither is your other son."_

Hearing those words sparked an emotion deep inside that the demon read as anger, smiling as it riled him. John buried the joy down, layering it under the adrenaline-thump of his heart. The demon wasn't the only player at this chessboard, not the only one planning moves far ahead of the game.

Dean's soul wasn't spattered with the blood of a woman who loved him, the way John's was. The way Sam's was. Dean's soul was _clean._

And there was a power in that, too.

_**Fin**_


	3. Nightmare Things

**Disclaimer:** Supernatural is property of the Kripke.

**A/N:** What my brain does with Season 1 DVDs, and I disclaim all knowledge.

**Summary:** There are bad things, out there in the dark.

* * *

NIGHTMARE THINGS

Mike met Lucas Barr when Asher brought him home from school two years after the monster attack.

"Mike! This is my friend Lucas," Asher bounced through the back door into their living room.

At the table, algebra textbook spread open in front of him and front desk directly through the open door, Mike looked up. Lucas was two years younger than him, a year older than Asher, red hair more deliberately long than the forgot-to-get-it-cut blond strands of the Nicholson brothers.

"Nice to meet you," he said after a minute.

"Zeppelin rules," Lucas answered with a wide grin.

Mike blinked, feeling a smile work across his face. "Oh, hell yeah."

And they were friends.

So the first time Michael flipped out on them for being out, alone, after dark, Lucas only tilted his head, peering out at him from under the spill of orange he called hair. Asher had stormed off to their room, yelling about bossy big brothers with control complexes.

"Why're you so freaked, man?"

They'd been friends for two years now, Michael in the high school leaving Asher and Lucas still at the elementary building. He was coming home even later, expecting to find his baby brother at home waiting. Today he hadn't.

"It's just . . . dangerous out there," was the answer he gave everyone, but Lucas only blinked.

"Well, yeah."

Pressed against the cabinets, one fist still throbbing against the counter, Michael struggled with words. "I'm not just talking about the druggies and the pervs and the drunk drivers, man. There're . . . _things_, out there. It's – it's not safe." The shadows weren't empty. But Asher didn't know that.

"Yeah." From the distant look in his eyes, Lucas knew.

So Michael told him, the first person ever, about the black-cloaked _monster_ that had slipped into their window and sucked out a piece his brother's soul. About the two guys, brothers, who had rolled into town with guns and balls and the know-how to kill it. Who'd left a stack of bills to cover their way for the credit card that had bounced not long after they'd cleared out.

And Asher had gotten better.

He didn't say how they'd also left him feeling not alone in this scary new world, with the faintest trace of an idea of what it might be like to have an older brother, rather than being one, for a change.

Lucas' eyes had widened at the description of the brothers and their ride, and Michael thought, _huh._ "So, what happened to you?" he finally got up the courage to ask. Later, Mike didn't think he would have been able to if he hadn't seen the light of recognition in his friend's eyes when he talked about them.

And finally, finally he got their names. Sam and Dean.

"When he was a kid," Lucas said finally, "my grampie killed another kid by accident. Drowned him in the lake." Lake Manitoc, where the younger boy had lived, which had dried up years ago and the town had followed. "His spirit was angry. Killed my dad." The last was a mere whisper. "Tried to kill my mom. Sam saved her."

Michael could tell there was something more, but even that was more than enough. Lucas' mom was nice. He swallowed.

"And Dean kept it from drowning me," Lucas said finally.

It didn't explain how sometimes Lucas would go very quiet, and there was nothing for it but to leave him with his sketchpad and pencils to draw it out into something tangible, something he could see with his eyes instead of his mind. But Mike thought that maybe it was a piece of the puzzle.

It was an hour before Asher opened their bedroom door, emerging with the barest apology and a scowl, but volunteering to do all the dishes that night and jumping to the front desk before Michael could shift away from his homework.

Lucas stayed, too.

_**Fin**_


	4. Perish Twice

**Disclaimer: **All Hail Kripke! Yep, I own nothing but my tears of longing.

**A/N:** Oh, yeah, the obligatory Sam-figures-out-the-deal fic. Also, death!fic, be warned. Because I've never actually done this to you before. _Ever._

**Summary:** The world never ends in quite the way you think it will.

* * *

PERISH TWICE

The first time Sam's world collapsed, it did so in fire from the poem she had laughingly read to him on their six-month anniversary. _"Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those that favor fire."_ And then she'd reeled him in with a grin and a spark in her eye, and they'd spent hours in bed, kindling flames of their own.

_"No! Jess! No!"_

He couldn't remember the fire that had taken his mother from him, had turned his life upside down. All he'd known for the longest time was a series of run-down rooms, apartments, and trailers. That was his 'normal' – until Billy Carbunkle in fourth grade had sneered at his ratty sneakers and Dean had bloodied the bully's nose.

It hit Sam then that most kids didn't migrate like wild geese. Most kids slept in the same bed every night for years, came home to the same house every day, went to school with the same people for years.

They'd moved more and more frequently as Sam had gotten older. At first he'd wondered what it would be like, to be stationary and not nomadic. Then he'd gotten old enough to want it for himself, and the reasons he couldn't have it weren't enough.

Dad was trying to prepare them for the world, Dean said.

Sam pointed out that most people didn't need Dad's preparation. He never went on the hunts, never really saw the point in his father's endless crusade. It wasn't fair that other kids with only one parent could have a home and they couldn't. The embers of resentment were stoked by every hunt, every missed opportunity and move, every argument, until they were fanned into flame with a letter from Stanford.

_"If you walk out of here, don't come back."_

His father had said it so coldly – loud, shouting, like every conflict between them was. But these words had rung true in a momentary silence, never to be taken back. It took years, and his brother, for Sam to realize that Dad had meant to shove Sam free of their life entirely. Safe, if separate.

The second time Sam's world ended it took much longer than a ceiling bursting to flame, crisping the body pinned to it.

It took a year.

A year of research, of stepping back into the shoes of the person he'd been on his way to becoming before escaping to Stanford. A year of finding that he didn't care, if it would let him keep his brother.

It didn't.

For all he killed the contractor, the Crossroads Demon hadn't been lying. And Sam could barely believe that a creature so far up on the hierarchy of Hell would want his brother's soul – because the more evil they were, the further they were removed from human concerns, from caring about the meat-suits walking the Earth anyway.

But it would be strong enough to overcome every binding, purification, and prayer he preformed, and send the hellhounds anyway. There was nothing he could do, except observe the letter of the contract.

Dean had exactly one year before his soul went to Hell.

Which meant they couldn't claim his soul until then – and if it went somewhere else in the meantime, well. It was safe.

This time, there was no fire; only the freezing agony of watching Dean's soul slip from his flesh, the sinking chill in his stomach as he held his brother's lax body, somehow able to smile through tears as he stroked a hand through Dean's hair, letting him die loved. Letting him die believing the cold lie that Sam would be okay.

When the gasps gentled into death, his façade cracked, crystal tears shattering free of him in an unrelenting blizzard of pain. Sam clutched his brother's cooling body, on his knees in the middle of the crossroads, numbed inside and out.

He couldn't feel anything. He was frozen.

Dean's soul was free, though – released into death one day before the deal came due, all unknowing, at Sam's hand. From the relief on his face, though, Dean had understood before the bullet burrowed through skin and bone to drink deep of his heartblood.

Anything Sam might have felt about that was crystallized by the chill seeping into him from the body in his arms. He was alone.

"_But if it had to perish twice, I think that for destruction, ice is also great, and would suffice."_

_**Fin**_


	5. Just One Person

**Disclaimer: **'Supernatural' characters and premise are property of Kripke. All hail!

**A/N:** Because those throwaway lines are just so damn inspiring. Set in Season 2, before "Croatoan".

**Summary:** It took Sam awhile to realize that was all he really needed.

* * *

JUST ONE PERSON

* * *

"_They don't need you. Not like you need them." _–Azazel, "Devil's Trap"

* * *

Dean was used to being not enough for the people he loved. 

Not enough for them to stay, not enough for them to look past revenge to see something else in the world. What the Demon tried to hurt him with in the cabin during that little slice of hell wasn't exactly news.

He blinked, looking up.

Last thing he remembered was Sammy's face, frozen in a rictus of terror, as the floor gave out under Dean's feet. No. The last thing he remembered was the impact.

_Hurts . . ._

But the sky above him was shockingly blue, clouds dripped and smeared in dabs of white across it. He could feel grass prickling gently on the back of his neck, and the exposed skin of his hands. A flash of red swooped low overhead, and Dean's eyes followed it into the sun.

_Firebird._

What was it doing here?

_Where am I?_

He tilted his head to the side, cool grass tickling his cheek. Tested each limb carefully, feeling seeping into his brain from all corners, creeping up on him. He was a little surprised to note that nothing was broken, though aches and pains were making themselves known to him. Dean had been afraid, when he'd – woken – that he'd severed his spinal cord.

For all the abuse they took, in their line of work, Dean knew how terrifyingly _fragile_ the human body could be. Twist just so, and lose the use of a limb broken beyond repair. Hit in the head a certain way, and die slowly. Fall just wrong, and never walk, move, _feel_ again. It didn't take much to put a hunter out of commission forever, if he wasn't careful.

It was a testament to their skill that they were not just alive after so many years of hunting, but whole and hale and relatively unscarred.

But _where was Sam?_

Dean gained his feet, frowning to find himself still covered in the dust of the decaying mansion he and his brother had been investigating. Whoever had brought him here hadn't bothered to remove his weapons, either.

_Good for me, bad for them._

The reason why became painfully obvious.

The grass beneath him was long and coarse, green-brown in the sun. The hardy type of grass that flourished in deplenished soils. Like sand. The flat area where he'd been laid out was the top of a grassy dune that sloped gently down into the water – all he could see, in every direction, was the calm of lapping waves.

He was alone.

* * *

"_Dean, when this is all over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way."_ –Sam, "Shadow"

* * *

"Anything on the EMF?" 

From behind his brother, Sam could hear the tap of a fingernail against the homemade display of the meter.

"Nah. We got the right time?"

Flashlight beaming around the room, Sam nodded, forgetting just for a minute that Dean couldn't see him. "Yeah."

People had been going missing at this exact location once a decade for over a hundred years, as far as he could figure, and probably for longer. The house had been built in 1847, and had miraculously survived not only Sheridan's Burning across the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, but also the fight for civil rights that had raged across the South over a century later.

Over the last fifty years, reports had noted the flashing of strange lights, and an eruption of sound from the house on June 26 once a decade. _And tomorrow night's the 26__th_

There might be even more people than the twelve they knew had disappeared, just because the history of this area before that was carried by the Native Americans and in no white man's library, as far as Sam could tell. _And there might have been missed years._

But so far, there was no real pattern they could find to the people who were missing; all ages, genders, ethnicities. _There's always a link._ But in this case, it was nothing obvious.

Something shifted in the corner and Dean tensed; Sam swung his flashlight beam in time to catch a wormed tail flick into the shadows.

"Rats," his brother muttered, intensely disgusted.

Out of the bedroom, Dean led him down the hall towards the staircase.

"Wait, we're not going into the attic, are we?" Sam frowned. All the reports in the last few years had cited odd happenings on the bottom floor, near the front of the house.

"Never hurts to be thorough," Dean retorted.

And his older brother was proven right by the red lights and humming squeal emerging from the EMF-meter as they mounted the top of the stairs and entered the attic proper. "Dude, it stinks in here."

Sam sneezed, wiping at eyes watering from the dust.

Dean rolled his eyes, pulling a bandana from one pocket and thrusting it his way. Sam mopped his eyes and nose, stuffing the cloth away when Dean stared at him rather than touch it. "So, what've we got?"

Venturing deeper into the attic, testing creaking boards, Sam's sneakers kicked up clouds of dust. He pushed a pile of books out of the way with the side of one foot, wincing at the crackle of paper beneath his toes.

The skin on the back of his neck shivered with a hunters instincts; Sam stilled, looking around the room for anything unusual. No vague forms manifested, no cold spots bit at the exposed skin of hands and face.

_Something's not right._

Judging by his expression, his brother felt it too. Sam took a breath, opening his mouth as he turned toward his brother –

And the floor crumbled beneath black boots, Dean plummeting through rotten boards and leaving Sam alone, staring at the space he'd occupied only a breath before.

* * *

"_. . . he looked at me different." _–Dean, "Something Wicked"

* * *

"Dean." 

He whirled, sand shifting under his bare feet, and met eyes he'd last seen closed in death. All the while his mind whispered, _It can't be. _"Dad?"

A smile peered out from under black-and-silver beard. "How ya doin', dude?"

Dean swallowed, feeling somehow nine years old again. He didn't know how long he'd been here under the sun and blue sky. Long enough to know himself alone and maybe safe, long enough to get bored and strip off weapons, boots, coat and outer flannel to wander in the surf a little. Not long enough to get hungry or thirsty or burned by the sun warming his skin.

Dad was dead.

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

The figure that wasn't his Dad reached out a hand and settled it on his shoulder, and _God_ but it felt real. "Sort of. Do you want to stay?"

So _this_ is what had happened to all those people who had disappeared across the years.

"Where is this place?" Dean asked, not answering.

The figure in the guise of his father stilled, smile fading. "A back alley in what you would call reality," it finally responded, inspecting the picture around them. "But you have seen more of what reality can be than most others. This is the closest it has come to its true form in a millennium."

"And what is its true form?"

The figure crouched, then, fingers slipping through the sand and allowing a handful to trickle away into the soft breeze skimming Dean's skin.

"Valhalla. The Fields of Aaru. Nirvana. Havistagan. Purgatory. Elysium. Gehenna. And more; the places where souls go after."

_No._

It was lying.

"Now why would I do that?"

Dean stumbled back up the slope toward the place he'd revived, boots in one hand and knife in the other. He hadn't said anything.

And he didn't know where he was, couldn't go anywhere, and he didn't want to be fighting in the water when that thing came to him.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Dean," it told him.

He snorted. "Right."

It looked less and less like his father now, losing features and expression and stature to become amorphous – at all times many people and no one. It hurt his mind to stare at it for too long; Dean staggered away. "What are you?"

It settled on a form, then – a young black girl of no more than fifteen.

Dean blinked, and it was now a white man garbed in gray uniform of wool, brass buttons shining. And then a Native American boy, skin dusky in the sun. And an old woman, and a pregnant mother – and on, and on, and on, faces he recognized from missing persons reports and verbal accounts of those who had disappeared here over the decades.

Then it was somehow all of them at once, feet planted in the shifting sands as it turned its face up towards him, the power of twenty dead in its gaze.

And he knew what it was.

_Sin-eater._

* * *

"_It's never gonna be over. There's gonna be others. There's always gonna be somethin' to hunt_." –Dean, "Shadow"

* * *

He was gone. 

Sam had scrambled down the stairs, screaming frantically for his brother, panic rocketing ever higher at the silence that met him, answered only by the echoes of his own voice.

In the room where Dean should have been, there wasn't even a disturbance of dust to show he'd been there. No hole in the ceiling. Nothing.

Thinking at first he'd gotten the wrong room, Sam scoured the second floor of the house, yelling for Dean, and found absolutely _nothing._ Racing back to the attic had only compounded the problem. The hole his brother had disappeared into was gone, leaving no sign they'd ever been there.

Just a hole where Sam's brother used to be.

Hours later at the motel, he gave in and called Bobby, spilling the story down the phone line as quickly as he could, adrenaline rushing every word.

And a man with decades more experience had had the answer.

_Portal. Sin-eater._ And the ritual that would return his brother to him. . . maybe.

Dean was still _there,_ Bobby had told him, voice soothing across a phone line. It was just that _there_ had moved _elsewhere._ And Sam needed to pull the two into alignment once more, even if only for a second, to get his brother back. _And then clean up the mess . . ._ He'd worry about that when Dean was safe.

Kneeling over the last dusty footprints his brother had left on the attic floor, Sam closed two chalk lines together and picked up the first of the five thick candles placed around the circle's circumference. In his hand a lighter flicked to life; five flames danced on the wicks of white wax. Smoking sage colored the air.

Rising to his feet, Sam stepped into the circle, opened his notebook, and let the Latin flow from his tongue.

_This has to work._

* * *

"_But you're just one person, Dean."_ –Sam, "Houses of the Holy"

* * *

He was lying on the ground again, with no idea how he'd gotten there. 

Dean could feel something resting on his chest, growing heavier with each breath he took.

He couldn't move.

But this time it was different – sand packed tightly underneath him, unlike the giving bed of grass he'd first awoken on. And there was the noise of shuffling nearby.

"Done," said the sin-eater, reaching out over his chest. Dean caught a glimpse of gleaming eyes, and was faintly glad that he couldn't move, that this thing wouldn't see the shudder of revulsion he might otherwise have let free.

_Is that a – _

It looked like a roll, a fluffy knot of dough baked golden and set out on a shelf somewhere, but as the sin-eater picked it up, crushing weight lifted from Dean's chest. He still couldn't move, but he felt like he could breathe.

"You should feel lucky," it told him, voice muffled by the bread Dean knew wasn't a roll at all. "I don't usually do this for people who haven't agreed to stay first. But you have such _delicious _sins."

"Oh, really?" he found the breath to snarl.

It giggled a little, the sound disturbing. "You're a hunter. You know about my kind, and others that the rest of humanity thinks are fairy-tales and legends. Think of it like a spice, flavoring your soul."

His eyes widened.

It flapped something that resembled an arm. "Of course I can't take that, but it just overflows into everything else. And some of your sins I haven't tasted in -"

_Whump._

Something had exploded, far out to sea.

Or not, if the way the sin-eater snapped into one shape that Dean didn't recognize was any indication. Fingers digging deep into the sin-cake it had pulled from him, it found feet in its guise of an old woman, staring out at the ocean.

He wanted to move. Couldn't.

And there was an invisible hand, wrapping around the strings of Dean's consciousness, yanking him off the island and into darkness.

* * *

"_As long as I'm around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you.."_ –Dean, "Nightmare"

* * *

"Dean! _Dean!_" Smoke slapped him in the face; Sam stumbled, blinded and coughing. _Where is he!_ "Dean!" 

Charred boards and tumbled cinderblocks caught at his feet, intent on tripping him. Sam lifted the bandana to his face, closing it over nose and mouth to breathe free of the wisping grey cloud drifting through the mansion's ruins.

Fire it had been the only way. He'd ripped the universe open with the incantation that was supposed to return his brother to him, and the only way to seal the wound was by cauterizing it.

So he'd burned the mansion to the ground, and hoped it would be enough. "_Dean!_"

The blackened ruins were utterly still.

Which was why the distinctive _snap!_ of old bone underfoot echoed like a gunshot across his nerves. Sam startled, jumping aside, and saw the bodies.

Seventeen or so, he counted. Untouched by the fire and smoke, bones yellowed and brittle with age. He recognized the Confederate uniform of one man who'd gone missing during the Civil War, early enough to be noted in the records. And the dresses of the women who'd disappeared, jeans on a more recent corpse.

In the middle was a still, familiar form.

Sam couldn't see if Dean was breathing.

He leapt over bodies and neatly avoided twisting his ankle on a wobbly pile of boards, scrambling to get to his brother. _Please let it have worked please let him be alive please –_ "Dean. Dean!"

Under his fingers, a pulse thrummed strongly.

_**Fin**_


	6. Immune

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, but I can dream.

**A/N:** 'Croatoan', in case you hadn't guessed. Mentions and inspiration drawn from all S2 episodes.

**Summary: **Marked by protection.

* * *

IMMUNE

It was the sulfur byproduct that tipped him off, really.

He'd been prelaw, not premed, but some things they hurled at you in high school biology just stuck. Carbon is the element of life, no matter what ancient scholars might claim about earth and air, fire and water. Aerobic versus anaerobic; warm or cold-blooded; kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.

And nowhere in the jumble that might include the Kreb's cycle and some details on photosynthesis was there any hint at all that sulfur might combine well with the rest of the human bloodstream.

The _human_ bloodstream.

After all, every human exposed to the virus went dark-side.

So why hadn't he?

And then the demon showed him a memory of standing over his cradle, dripping its own blood into a baby Sam's mouth – but what with _dying_ and _killing the demon_ and _Dean's deal_, he was a little busy.

The visions disappeared.

And Sam . . . forgot.

Maybe he was hoping it would go away; out of sight, out of mind.

Since when were any of his problems that easily solved?

_**Fin**_


	7. Breaking Strain

**Disclaimer: **Nothing is mine. But it could be . . . (mutters _All shall love me and despair_ . . . snaps self out of covetous ring-like haze) Um, wrong fandom. Ooops!

**A/N:** Spoilers for 3.07, "Fresh Blood". And yeah, this idea pulled a "Molten Time" and freaked the hell out of me as it manifested.

**Summary:** Gordon Walker knew exactly what he had become.

* * *

BREAKING STRAIN

When he rises to a new consciousness, Gordon can't fool himself that he's just _waking up._

It's so much more than that.

It's the pounding of blood in every other creature but him and the two girls hanging by their wrists from the ceiling, dangling from rope rather than the chain he can feel digging into the join of hands and arms. It's the excruciating buzz of neon against the inside of his eyes, searing brightness through his eyes and into the back of his skull. It's the heat somehow running through him, though he knows he's dead. It's the knowledge that breaks a sweat out over his skin, when he didn't even think he was capable of that anymore.

It's the _hunger_ and the _rage_ that drags his bonds from the metal beam, a tiny voice smirking about the older vampire who never bothered to learn about breaking strain. The point at which the weight of the burden frays its ties to the one struggling to carry it, and the whiplash storms through nearby space, flaying everything – everyone – in range.

A soft, female voice surprises him enough to stop, and remember the two girls.

But his pity dried up a long time ago. When he fits fingers around their ears and _twists,_ it's out of necessity. And more than a little anger.

The first feed – and he knows there must be one, he stinks of blood not his or theirs even though all he remembers is watching his own eyes bloodshot to gold in a reflection on rain-spattered glass – brings clarity back to him. He's a lost cause; thrust against his will into becoming one of the things he hunts. He was Gordon Walker, but now he is a walking horror.

Only one thing left to do. No – two things left to kill.

But he should tell Kubrick, let him get the word out to the hunters that Gordon Walker is gone.

He'd had a feeling, from the moment he'd seen what his sister had become, that it would end this way. Nice to be right.

But not about Kubrick. He'd thought the man was smarter than that, but maybe it was just his wild, consuming belief in Jesus doing the other man's talking for him. Gordon had pulled his ass out of the fire more than once because the idiot had charged in without enough knowledge or preparation, believing in God to save him. Always a little different than the rest of the hunting world, not doing it because of vengeance but because it was the _right_ thing to do. Holy mission.

Gordon privately was of the belief that vengeance would keep you alive when morals couldn't.

And Gordon wasn't God, not by any stretch of the imagination.

He proved it, but by then Kubrick was too busy dying to care.

It was almost too much then, his friend's blood hot on the hand of the thing that had once been Gordon Walker, and never would be again. Dean tried to call to that part of him, but it was already dead, and that man was either the world's greatest idealist, or too far locked in denial for even Death to reach him; Gordon hadn't decided which.

He was getting hungry again, but it could wait. All he had to do was kill Sam Winchester, and then it would be over. He would be able to control it until then, and setting the plan in motion allowed him the chance to snack, just to keep it under control.

Or so he thought – and then the older Winchester was under him, blood sparking hot in his veins with adrenaline and anger and Gordon could _taste it_ -

His will shattered under the strain of the pull between his hunger and need to kill Sam. And the whiplash bit into Dean's neck with voracious fangs, gulping at the hot flow and pressing all his tensed muscles against the writhing, struggling hunter, until shock and loss and one good slam of skull against boards slumped that delicious body against his own, letting him feed deep.

The thing that had once been Gordon Walker was still flush with the curling pleasure of the brother's blood when he stared into Sam Winchester's eyes. Crimson sweetness lay thick on the back of his tongue – he hadn't had the chance to swallow, was choking on razor wire and blood not his –

And he had a moment of shocking pain when he saw he'd snapped Sam Winchester's restraint. The backlash separated his head from his body for a moment of realization before he stared into the darkness, still hearing the pumping of blood, with open eyes.

_**Fin**_


	8. Tarnished, Gutter Soul

**Disclaimer:** 'Supernatural', characters and premise, are property of Eric Kripke.

**A/N:** I really can't believe my best summary for this is only two words. But it is. And Emma15 is right there, feeding me ideas about the firstborn. My gift to you!

**Summary: **Demons lie.

* * *

TARNISHED, GUTTER SOUL

* * *

"_Just keep your gutter soul. It's too tarnished, anyway."_ – Crossroads Demon, "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 2". 

"_I'm just a saleswoman. I got a boss, just like everybody. He holds the contract."_ – Crossroads Demon, "Bedtime Stories".

* * *

Sam figures it out.

It takes him months after forcing the words of the deal, verbatim, from Dean's lips; longer than he'd like to admit. _You get one year. If you try and weasel or welch your way out, the deal's off. Sam drops dead, he's back to rotten meat in no time._

One year, exactly, before she had a claim on the soul he'd sold. No more.

Also, no less.

But that's not what sticks in his brain, on repeating loop, time and time again.

Dean had spun himself inside out to save their family, and had burned their father alongside Sam. Had been faced with burning Sam too – being the last survivor of the havoc wreaked by the demon on the Winchesters. In the wake of that _(during Sam's wake)_ he'd thrown himself into the deal, bargaining with the one thing he'd thought had value.

And had been told the coin he was trying to spend was worthless.

There's a reason demons seem so careless with words – they want the humans they toy with to think as little of them when brokering their souls as when ordering a beer. Because demons are bound to words and bonds, more tightly than Christ was nailed to his cross.

So why, _why,_ if Dean's soul is really as worthless as he believes it is _(as she told him it is)_, does the Morning Star himself hold the contract?

He stumbles over a tiny book, written in a delicate, spidery hand, in Virginia of all places. The library is old and has only one room, with floorboards that set up a raucous conversation under every footfall and shelves higher than is generally practical. It's bound with paste and twine between two flaps of cardboard, three shelves below a host of bodice-rippers whose covers would have his brother snickering and make Sam's own face turn red.

The book speaks to him after he sneaks it out the door with a smile to the elderly woman behind the desk – no detectors at the door or tracking devices here, where dust and years layer the room as thick as sunlight. The book is small enough that Sam can hide it between the pages of the latest Crichton thriller, and read it while the rumble of the Impala courses through his body. When he finds what he's looking for, the words that unravel the secret at his big brother's core, he jerks hard enough to slam his elbow against the door and earn an answering jump of surprise from the driver's seat.

_Spirit of the firstborn. _

The Demon had it wrong, for all those years. Favored as he was, Sam wasn't the special one; the one forced into being a soldier to save his life, the one hidden, concealed beneath a veil of unimportance so thick it was ingrained into Dean's skin, seeping through blood and bone to imprint on his very soul.

Hiding in plain sight was nothing more than a euphemism for the world's most clever concealment. A mix of the last place anyone ever looked and _they can't possibly be that stupid_.

And because Sam had never been looking for _this_, he found Dean.

_**Fin**_


	9. A Great Thief

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Bela. If I did . . . wow, she would die gruesomely (Check out the fate of Prometheus). Right, this is all Kripke's sandbox (which is why we also have to deal with Ruby).

**A/N:** Bela annoys me to no end. Also, I haven't been able to see the last ten minutes or so of "Red Sky At Morning", so I don't know exactly what the situation with her is; I'm making it up. Again. Spoilers for "Bad Day At Black Rock", "Red Sky At Morning", and "Fresh Blood"; because _hell yeah _Dean, that phone conversation in "Fresh Blood", you know the one I'm talking about.

**Summary:** Every rascal is not a thief, but every thief is a rascal. (Aristotle)

* * *

A GREAT THIEF

The night Bela puts herself on the list of people Dean Winchester would be able to kill without blinking, she doesn't realize it at first.

She only winged Sam, after all – she'd be surprised if there was more than a thick crease in the younger Winchester's skin. She knows her guns. Not as well as she knows her treasure, of course, since thieves prefer to slink in and out without the flashy, _loud_ heroics hunters tend to . . . well. _Attract_ isn't precisely the word she wants, but it'll do.

They are both quite handsome.

It's when she gets the call that she knows it's done for.

They had quite possibly started out on the wrong foot – a rabbit's foot, of all things – and that utter disaster with the ghost ship hadn't helped any. 'Assisted suicide' was a difficult thing to explain to anyone who hadn't been forced to decide whether to pull the feeding tube from their loved one and let them starve to death in a morphine haze, or take a more . . . _direct_ approach.

She possibly hadn't endeared herself to him with the 'angry sex' comment either, though Bela still thought it was a good idea. And if the chance presented itself, she was quite practiced at seizing the moment. _Or the treasure._ Two-for-one deal, in this case.

But it came back to the fact that, embedded in the dirt of a New York City cemetery, there was a bullet that had tasted Sam Winchester's blood. She had meant it as a shot across the bow, so to speak. Alone in the world, only in retrospect did she see that she'd forgotten how strong that one last tie to something bigger than oneself, to _family,_ could be. Hers had been severed years ago, by her own hand, so it was excusable. At least, until the point where it got her killed.

Bela was many things, and proud of all of them, but she wasn't an idiot.

And that phone call had been the only warning shot she knew she would get.

_**Fin**_


	10. Laugh, I Nearly Died

**Disclaimer:** If you think I own it, you've got a bigger imagination than I do - so go do something productive with it!

**A/N:** Another bit spawned by a title and then, of course, the rest followed. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Season 1, "Bloody Mary".

**Summary:** "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." (Thomas Jefferson)

* * *

LAUGH, I NEARLY DIED

Living in a car, in a life where a motel room anyone else would call cramped was the only place he could spread out, didn't mean much in the way of privacy. Until he went to Stanford, he didn't really know the comfort in that – in not having to hold any of himself apart. In some ways that was stifling, and in others, liberating; at Stanford it was the same, only in reverse. And Sam learned for the first time that he could have privacy, have secrets, and keep them close like jewels or open sores.

He brought that knowledge back with him, and both brothers seemed content to let it lie, let the changes be what they were and adapt around them, relearn one another in a way they'd never had to before.

It was working, or good enough, for awhile.

And then there was Bloody Mary Worthington, whispering sweet nothings – _you killed her you dreamed it would happen _– in his ear.

Sam could still feel the blood, hot as tears, spilling thickly down his cheeks.

_But there are some things I need to keep to myself._

And he kept his hold on the secret too, despite his brother's . . . request? Demand?

Sam had seen the streaks of blood on Dean's face, too. Known that four years apart meant there would be secrets between them, that with their lives, people would have died. But Sam's secret bled sluggishly into his dreams, not just death but _murder._

And later, he figured that it made sense, and was surprised his brother didn't pick up on it. That was what Mary saw, after all – secrets plus death equaling murder in the simplistic arithmetic of vengeful ghosts.

For all that he was pre-law, Sam couldn't convince himself that extenuating circumstances made a difference.

_**Fin**_


	11. Holy Water

**Disclaimer:** Supernatural is Kripke's. Not mine. cries

**A/N:** In case you haven't noticed, these little ficlets don't go in any order except the order in which they pop into my brain. This is centered on AHBL1&2, because _damn_ I love those eps.

**Summary:** "You think something like that works on something like me?"

* * *

HOLY WATER

Ellen watched as the Roadhouse went up in flames, braced against the inside of her own skull. _'Get out!'_ she screamed, thoughts of Ash and Roger and the Solskys and more somehow finding room in the tiny space she'd been squeezed into by the thing wearing her skin.

It didn't move, and they burned.

It let her watch.

She wanted to fight it, but it didn't even acknowledge her. The pain of seeing her life burn to nothing numbed her from the inside, and she very carefully didn't even _think_ of Jo, off making her life in a bar in Duluth or who knew where by now.

It walked her away when the ashes cooled, and no one had made it out.

When she saw the sign for _Singer Auto Salvage_, the numbness melted into curiosity. Then panic, as Dean caught her body up in surprised relief. _'Get away,'_ she wanted to warn him. And at the same time a tiny hope welled up in her, that they could know and see and _save_ _her_.

Ellen prayed.

But though the demon didn't talk to her, torment her – clever enough to see that her own imaginings would do that far more effectively than it ever could – it _did_ use her, plumbing her mind for knowledge. And doing what she would do.

"Is this really necessary?" Her hand held the shot glass with careless familiarity.

Singer shrugged, always suspicious, forceful friendliness in each glance. "Just a belt of holy water."

It was cool, sliding down her throat; Ellen could feel it, distantly.

_Oh God._

Only demons of the highest level could withstand the traps and boundaries and protections of mankind. There was no fizzing in her stomach, no smoking of skin seared by blessings. _It's immune._

But when it pulled out the map it had so casually bought, X-ing in marks with a gas station attendant's borrowed marker, she realized why it wasn't focused on her.

Demons wanted death and destruction – they thrived from it, drinking deep of human suffering whenever the chance presented itself. And the Roadhouse had seemed like wanton devastation, but Ellen knew far more hunters than had been present, had a daughter who held her heart. If it wanted to crush her, to taste the draught of her misery, it hadn't even scratched the surface of possibilities.

But she wasn't the point.

Hours of scouring books lead them to Wyoming, standing in a graveyard holding guns on a boy who was going to open a gate to hell.

It was when he had her hold the gun to her head that she realized – this Jake could control demons. Because hers was fighting the order every bit as much as the real Ellen was fighting it, and with about as much success.

But that fight let slip a few things into her mind, confirming what she'd already guessed. After all, there were many demons, in hell and out of it, and they didn't all want the same thing. This one, in particular, didn't want the gate opened – didn't want the riffraff let loose, didn't want the competition, or what could become a coming war with Azazel. She couldn't get a hint of the reasons behind it, they were buried too deep to slip loose to her, but it was enough to confirm her suspicions.

It even used her body and its strength to slam the door shut.

But when Azazel died, it stayed, sinking deep into her flesh, and Ellen realized. She might not be the point.

But the Winchesters were.

_**Fin**_


	12. Ye Who Enter Here

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing 'Supernatural'. I cede all to Kripke.

**A/N:** A new style for me. And it felt a little weird, so any comments you have would be indeed very appreciated! Also, please let me know when you get to the end if it makes sense?

**Summary:** Dante's Inferno isn't quite how the stories tell it.

* * *

YE WHO ENTER HERE

One man sits on a chair, staring at a body lying on a mattress across the room. He can't remember the moments in which the hellhounds came, everything but the _now_ driven out of him by grief.

Who are they? Well, they're brothers, you see. Or were. I know they don't look that much alike; that's what I said at first. But when they both were alive you could see it – in the line of their jaws and the set of their shoulders, in the determination reflected between two sets of eyes. Nevermind that their faces were drawn by different artists, they shared the same mother and the same father and though the resemblance was faint, it was there.

They don't look similar now, though. The one on the mattress is far too pale – grayish white and cold with it. Stiff, with what they call _rigor mortis_. The one in the chair's not much better off, except for his heartbeat. And there's all the blood, too, of course.

Where are they? Ahh, that's not important. They never paid much attention to that when they were both alive; why should it make a difference now that one of them is dead? It's a room, somewhere, in a house that once was loved and cared for and now has fallen to musty decay. No different from most of the places they've squatted. Or used to – somehow I don't see the future unfolding the same way the past did, what with half the pair nothing more than the remains of a soul.

If the questions are done, maybe you'll let me get back to telling the story?

Good.

They've been like this for what feels like forever. Hours, at least, maybe longer – with the brother in the chair fighting back tears, staring at the body across the room. The body's face is blank of expression; those looking for terror won't find it. Of course, those looking for peace won't find that, either. It's probably that last which tips the balance, sending the man on the chair into harsh tears.

It's not that different from a year ago. See, then? They were fighting Azazel, and I _know_ you know who he is; but here's a reminder: yellow eyes? Good. You may not know it, but only the Fallen are marked out from the rest of demons that way. Your garden-variety evil is black, of course. Straight-up badness, easy to recognize and hard to overcome. But the higher ups? They're trickier. Like to sneak right up close, whisper in the ears of humans, twist and tinker and tune until – and this is the important bit – humans _choose_ the evil, _all on their own._

So of course they don't come right out and announce what they are – that would blow the whole thing. Why yellow? I don't really know, but I've always thought that Azazel had a bit of a flare for the dramatic, what with burning all those women on the ceilings over their babies' cribs. But that's another story for another time.

Where was I?

Oh! Right. A year ago.

Then, the younger one had gone and gotten himself mixed up in all that nonsense with women and ceilings and fire – y'see, Azazel'd taken a shine to him, back when he was just a little thing. Long story short, he ran afoul of another of Azazel's favored, and ended up dead. Careless, if you ask me, but then I wasn't there.

And the older brother. Damn, was he a mess. Cracking all along his doubts and insecurities, grief-stricken and desperate and in as close to hell as you can get without actually being dead. Ended up shattering himself in an explosion of pain and the roar of a '67 Chevy's engine.

Yeah, good year.

The thing was, he called up the Lady of the Crossroads, crazy with sorrow, and sold away his soul for his brother's life. But that's the dénouement, not the story. More like a footnote. The story was in those moments before his foot hit the accelerator, tires spitting gravel as he sped to the crossroad.

This story? Well, second verse same as the first, y'know; a mirror couldn't reflect it any better. Except the younger brother took a bullet – one of Samuel's special ones, I'm sure you've heard – to the Lady of the Crossroads, awhile back. Maybe revenge, maybe anger, maybe trying to save the older one's soul. Maybe all three; the point is, she's dead. So I don't know how this story ends, but I can tell you it won't be _that_ way.

What? You asked.

Ooooh, look – something's happening.

There's an older man, now. Not their father, because he's been and gone to death and hell and _somewhere else_, no one really knows. But he's out of the picture. This man's more like a favorite uncle, with his beard and ballcap. Shhh, be quiet, and maybe you can hear -

"I hate to say it, I really do. But don't you think it's time we bury -"

And he barely gets the word out before the one in the chair cuts him off. "No."

So then he says something about food, pointing to a table you can just see from the doorway of this room. And the one in the chair doesn't blink, doesn't say anything. _I_ coulda told him that; what with the way these two were joined at the hip, you think there'd be any way he could eat with his brother's body cold in the next room?

Eventually, the older man leaves.

But don't worry, he'll be back. It won't be long either, I don't think. You see, he's been here before with the same question.

Why?

Well, look closer. It's not just the question, though that's a big part of it. It's the loneliness, the ease with which the older man just turned and walked out that door. Favorite uncle or not, there's no real blood between them, no tie of time and tears and certainly no love like these two brothers had. Note the past tense there – _had. _All that's left is ashes.

So it could be the question, but I think it's the loneliness. Either way, the man in the chair is staring at the body on the mattress, the brown crust of blood, and his heart is leaking from green eyes in a steady stream. He can't hold it back anymore, and the pain is thick enough to taste.

It's almost as good as a picture show. After all, the only entertainment we get around here is stories, and most of those I'm tired of telling. Besides, you've probably already heard my best ones. But if you ever make it topside, you should hear what the humans say about Orpheus and Eurydice. They cut out all the good bits – we don't get a mention at all. It's enough to make you think no one ever asked what _really _happened to Eurydice when she ended up down here. Hey, maybe when that older guy comes back I can fill you in. I mean, this is great, it's new, but it's also on constant replay –

What, you want the end?

Fine, it's almost that time anyway. But listen close, 'cause this is the best part, and I'm only gonna say it once: The older brother, the one in the chair? _He thinks he's still alive._

_**Fin**_

* * *

**A/N2:** Sooo . . . have I confused you unbearably?


	13. While The Cat's Away

**Disclaimer:** Supernatural belongs to Kripke. If he doesn't kill Ruby, however, there will be a throwdown. I'm all for Dean and the Colt taking her out, personally.

**A/N: **Spoilers for Season 4 Episode 1, "Lazarus Rising". Followed by 'The Mice Will Play'.

**Summary:** Dean doesn't remember hell. Except for the light.

* * *

WHILE THE CAT'S AWAY

He's been out of hell for less than a day when Bobby tells him how bad it was. Still reeling from _four months_ and the handprint on his arm, it takes Dean longer to fully realize that it wasn't just _bad_, it was worse.

To be fair, he doesn't expect his baby brother to be able to lie to him so well. Or maybe he doesn't expect a series of lies to be the first things Sam says to him after he's been pulled from the Pit.

Some things, though, ping his radar right away.

For all Sam had said he needed to be more like Dean, the fact was that his little brother _wasn't_ Dean. Sammy needed more from life, from people, than Dean did; casual indifference had never been Sam's style. Dean was the one who forgot the names of his hookups. Sam didn't do hookups. Never did. He always wanted more.

But Dean let it lie at first, because . . . _four months._

He doesn't remember hell. Except for the light; roiling gray with flashes of bloody crimson. He knows it's hellfire, but his mind won't let him see it.

He can sometimes see it now in the periphery of his vision or the world reflected behind him in the mirror, when he concentrates on it. So Dean tries not to.

Between the shock at Sam's hookup being something more – and he _still _forgot her name? – the iPod in the Impala, and Castiel, it's two months before a roughly spoken "Goddamit," in front of Kristy makes her flinch, eyes flaring black.

Dean's halfway through the _Rituale Romanum_ before he hears what Sam's yelling; and even then, it's the panic in his brother's voice, more than the words, that yanks him to a halt.

"It's Ruby! Dean, stop, that's Ruby!"

Which is more than enough reason for Dean to keep going at first, but he pauses. And then it hits him, like every punch he's ever taken in his life all rolled into one.

Sam _lied_ to him.

And yeah, Dean's got secrets of his own; but those sprang up after his resurrection, after meeting up with Bobby and his brother, and he's still not convinced that Castiel is the real deal, demon-killing knife or not.

Sam's been lying to his face since they first met up.

Sam's been screwing Ruby.

Sam's been using powers he swore he'd left alone.

And for a wild moment, Dean wonders if he really was pulled free of hell; if he's not still there. His mind is screaming at him about the girl trapped in the body Ruby's stolen, and he can't believe his brother did what he did without thinking of her – because no way Sam would have done it if he'd given it enough thought. Dean has to believe that. It's a small thing, compared to the idea that Sam controls demons, uses his mind to do God-knows-what for reasons Dean can't even understand, because his brother _lied_. But it's all he can concentrate on.

Four months, Dean was in hell, and he can't remember it.

Looking into his little brother's eyes now, Dean can see hellfire. And he knows he was in hell too long.

_**Fin**_

**_(companion piece: "The Mice Will Play")_**


	14. The Mice Will Play

**Disclaimer:** Supernatural belongs to Kripke. If he doesn't kill Ruby, however, there will be a throwdown.

**A/N: **Spoilers for Season 4 Episode 1, "Lazarus Rising". Follows 'While The Cat's Away'. This chapter rated M for mature themes.

**Summary:** She's the Miss Universe of lying skanks. Sam will never know how proud she is of it.

* * *

THE MICE WILL PLAY

It's a week after Lillith casts her from her host before she can find her way back to Sam again. It doesn't matter how far or long she's been sent – the creature who calls herself Ruby has more tricks up her metaphorical sleeves than she's ever let on.

Lillith always _was_ a little full of herself.

It's two more weeks before she starts looking for a permanent host. Long enough to shimmy through a gaggle of passersby in Sam's life; long enough to see the mounting desperation as he has _no one_ to turn to, no recourse to take to save his brother. As he realizes that he's completely alone, for good.

Long enough that he'll be so glad to see _her_, a _demon_, that he'll listen to whatever she has to say, no matter what initial resistance he manages to muster up.

She loves the slick smell of desperation; she doesn't even need a host to taste it.

When she finally slips between skin and soul to set up house, she makes the choice carefully. Her first host was blonde, and with a little spitfire, independence, and contrary obstinacy she could evoke his first memories of Jess without stirring anything deeper. This time, though, she wants something different. She's already got the grudging trust that will get her in the door. Now, she needs to sweeten it, soften it, make him forget his damned brother's warnings.

So she chooses a soft little brunette, all kindness and caring and innocent allure. The girl screams a little when she realizes she can't control her limbs, and Ruby lashes back immediately. There's no time for her to fight this body's original owner. She leaves just enough of the girl that she won't have to worry about full-time animation of the body. And working with a corpse might introduce some problems in the later stages of her plan.

It's a month before she knocks on Sam's door.

He needs more sleep, she notices immediately, and smugness rises up within her; she chose the perfect host to get that accomplished. But it'll need some time before she'll be able to lead him that far down her path.

Recounting her previous encounters with the brothers Winchester, together and separately, gets her through that door and a lessening of the tightness around his eyes. Not a smile, not yet, but trust. Gratitude.

Even better.

It's another week before she convinces Sam to open the lockbox in his skull, but once he does all it takes is a few soft words of encouragement, a little soothing of the conscience he's almost eradicated even without her help; he barely needs instruction. A few hunts together, a few close calls that were closer on her part than they needed to be, and she's pleasantly surprised when desperation and adrenaline have Sam tumbling her host body into bed faster than she'd anticipated.

She lets what's left of the girl out for that, just enough to get a glimpse of the man her host doesn't know learning the body in every intimate way the girl had ever fantasized, but never had the courage to do. Ruby listens to the screaming and sobbing, and curves the girl's lips in a smile at Sam.

He never asks about the person the body he's screwing belonged to.

Lillith might have power, but she's an old breed. A dying breed, as the Winchesters and others like them do their work. Azaz'el did have that right; what better place to be, after all, than the right hand of the King, ushering in a new era? If she makes herself indispensable to him, any way possible, then all the better for her.

It's four months, four glorious months, before it all goes to hell.

But now, she's the one with the upper hand, the immediacy, trust, and _love_ Sam had for his brother, all transferred to her.

And she's damned if she's going to let _Dean Winchester_ spoil her plans.

_**Fin**_


	15. White Picket Fence

**Disclaimer:** Standard. Own nothing, profiting not at all.

**A/N: **Really, really inspired by the Season 6 closer to go back and try to catch up. So, everyone – here we are, back at good old Season 4! Also, I was getting _really irritated_ at seeing chapter 14's summary for the past _two_ years. I know. I'm horrible. Fixing it now!

**Summary: **By the time Claire turns fourteen, everything is different.

* * *

WHITE PICKET FENCE

When Claire Novak turns thirteen, she lives in a house with a creepy, smelly basement and an attic that harbors hornets with her mother and her father. She wants a cat, but Dad's allergic and Mom doesn't want the hair all over the house. She borrows her friend Janine's once, but Dad's eyes turn red and his breaths start to wheeze before he gets very far into the house.

She runs to the bathroom for the inhaler he never uses, scared that he might need the epi-pen Mom insisted they have on hand, just in case. He's outside waiting, and smiles at her even though her hands are shaking. A breath through the inhaler and everything looks alright, but it's really not. It's her fault.

Claire packs up Janine's cat – Moxie, with gray fur and white socks and the tip of its tail looking like it trailed in the cream dish – and walks it five houses down. She makes sure to brush herself off really well before she goes into the house again. She never asks about a cat again.

School is well enough, even if history is hard and sometimes she can't quite remember all the grammar rules for English. It's okay, though, because Mom helps her with flashcards and Dad proofreads all her papers before she hands them in. Church is better; choir is always fun even if the director's son is a total boob and slides flat faster than Michelle Kwan on ice. The youth group is planning a lock-in right before the high-school graduation, and Claire can't wait even though Mom and Dad are both going to be chaperones this year.

Her life is great, until all of a sudden it isn't.

There's something going on with Mom and Dad and they think she doesn't notice, but she does. At first she thinks it has something to do with church, because she heard Dad talking about angels, but she wasn't quite brave enough to sneak to the top of the stairs and listen into the living room, the way she does when it's about her grades or going out with her friends or even that one accidental time when it was about Grandpa's new wife. It's something new, different – something that makes the air in the house tight, every breath too loud and every movement too big. Something that makes her want to be small and quiet and hope it passes over and leaves them all alone.

She remembers the night Daddy disappeared. He went out to the porch, and he looked really unhappy. Claire remembers a bright light coming through the front windows, too bright to be the porch light, and being curious enough to go see for herself. Claire remembers _"I am not your father," _and all she can do is watch when he walks away.

When Claire Novak turns fourteen, she lives in a house with a creepy, smelly basement and an attic that harbors hornets with her mother. Her cat's name is Eldad.

_**Fin**_

* * *

**A/N2:** _Eldad_ – from the Hebrew, meaning "God has loved."


End file.
